Now, what is up with the sheep and goats? Why favor the sheep? A friend of mine sent me this reflection from Rev. Fr. Victor Spencer who lives in South Africa:
One thing has always puzzled me about this gospel: why do goats get such a bad press from Jesus? I’ve lived in rural Africa for most of my life and know both sheep and goats well. A couple of comments in sermons suggest that sheep and goats are difficult to tell apart. I can only suppose that such comments are made by urban people who have never seen either in real life.
In fact, goats are superior to sheep: more intelligent, less suicidal, better milk, more self-sufficient, less diet-conscious. Sheep are silly creatures: run on the road in front of traffic, straying blindly and unable to find their own way home, starving while standing in long grass. So, in Jesus’ parable, why are the goats consigned to perdition and the sheep to paradise?
So, the silly sheep who are stupid and fumbling along without a clue are favored and the goats who are intelligent, self-sufficient and seem to have their act together are rejected. Where does this leave us?
From what Fr. Spencer has shared about goats and what our culture in America values (things like self-sufficiency and intelligence), it seems to me that most of us fall into the “goat” category, don’t we? The goats seem to represent the values of this world and the needs of our egos for self-sufficiency and achievement. This is the realm of believing that we can “make it on our own” and when we retrofit that belief onto our spiritual life, religion turns into some sort of “merit system” of doing the right things so we can earn “brownie points for Jesus.” The goat in each of us hears this teaching about “doing for the least of these” as a checklist of things we need to do (“Feed the hungry. Well I donated to the food bank. Check! Cloth the naked – yep, got that one too! I gave some gently used cloths to Goodwill.”). When we do that, we miss the whole point of this story!
Jesus doesn’t give us a checklist of “to dos” in this teaching. Instead, he wants us to set aside our own ego needs and humble ourselves to be with the hungry, naked, imprisoned, homeless, infirmed and dying. This is what the sheep do – remember they have little to nothing to bring into a relationship. They aren’t smart, they aren’t self-sufficient, their suicidal tendencies leave them in peril – they bring empty selves into relationships. It’s the sheep who have the humility to companion the last, lost, little, least and lifeless. The clever goats are so full of themselves there isn’t any room for the other … certainly not the other who is broken and hurting.
It’s taken me a long time to get this. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing achievement and hard work – we need to work hard but perhaps we need to hold achievement a bit more lightly. That’s hard for me – I’m an eldest child and a one on the enneagram – which means I tend to be an insufferable perfectionist (and my husband can tell you I can beat myself up pretty well). What I am saying is that achievement, self-sufficiency and hard work are not the “be all and end all” of life. That’s idolatry and we’re really good at that in our culture.
My work in hospice really taught me a great deal about journeying with people and bringing nothing for that journey. What could I possibly do for a dying person? What could I possibly say? Nothing … at least initially. My patients taught me that just being with them was enough. I didn’t have to be smart or self-sufficient or have credentials and degrees … I just had to show up, hang out, and listen.
Dying people have the healthiest egos of anyone on the planet precisely because they’ve let go of them. They are out of the achievement rat race. They are no longer self-sufficient. That really hit home for me the first time I had to help our nurse change a patient’s diaper – yes, a diaper. We all recoil and think “Oh Lord, don’t let that happen to me” but I have news for you – unless you die suddenly, it will happen to you. We think it would be embarrassing or shame filled … but that patient (and many others thereafter) accepted my help with grace – even saying “thank you” when we finished our work. Achievement and self-sufficiency will pass away – grace filled relationships grounded in humility will not.
Jesus invites us into relationships grounded in humility. So don’t be tempted to think this teaching is another merit system of spiritual achievement or even a condemnation that you haven’t done “enough” for the least among us. Instead, see it as an invitation to go beyond achievement, leave self-sufficiency behind, and learn to be with the last, lost, little, least and lifeless. They have much to give you … but you can’t receive their gifts if you are already full of yourself.
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